Management Council
2023 - 2027
Netherlands
Bernadette Ramaker, MSc.
President
Bernadette is a certified applied sport psychologist (SPORTPSYCHOLOOG VSPN®, FEPSAC-SASP) and has been working as an applied practitioner since 2016. She started working with athletes in a variety of traditional sports and now works fulltime with professional esports teams in Berlin. In her work, nothing gets her more motivated and inspired than seeing it click for her clients. ENYSSP has played a vital role in her career and personal development since joining as a member in 2013, then being part of the Managing Council since 2019, first as Applied Department Coordinator and is now honored to serve as President. She has lived in four different countries, speaks four languages, and loves a good cup of coffee.
Laur Nurkse, MSc., MA
Secretary General
Laur is a certified applied sport psychologist (FEPSAC-SASP) and has been working as an applied practitioner since 2017. Wanting to become a coach led Laur to combine sport science with psychology in order to understand high performance better. He specializes in football and military performance psychology in international settings. Additionally he works with coaches and provides coaching education courses for multiple sports. In his free time Laur enjoys growing avocado trees, freestyle inline skating and watching football. Laur has been with ENYSSP since 2018.
Estonia
Greece
Evangelos Manolopoulos, MSc.
Treasurer
Evangelos is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Athens, working in parallel as a self-employed sport psychologist and CBT therapist. He has an academic background in Psychology (University of Athens) and he has completed the Master Program Psychology of Exercise (University of Thessaly). He has collaborated with sport clubs and individual athletes from a wide range of sports including football, basketball, fencing, swimming, chess and martial arts. Also, he had been involved in the Sport for Development sector, having worked in a number of social empowerment through sports projects for children. His current research interests concern the role of mental fatigue in sport performance. He has been an ENYSSP member since 2016.
Sanja Petrić, MSc.
Applied Department
Sanja is a certified sport psychologist with a Master’s Degree in psychology from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb, Croatia and has been working as a practitioner since 2016. She is currently employed in a private practice called Mental Training. She has worked with more than 200 athletes from over 30 different sports, but has a soft spot for footballers since she is an ex-football referee. When she is not working, she enjoys watching sports, especially football (Manchester United) and Formula 1 (Ferrari). During the winter you could see Sanja on the slopes as she loves skiing.
Croatia
Germany
Helena Schmitz, MSc.
Applied Department
Helena is currently the sport psychology consultant for the youth academy of 1. FC Nuremberg. After completing her MSc in Sport and Exercise Psychology at the German Sport University Cologne, she has been working as an applied sport psychologist working with athletes, teams, coaches, parents and other stakeholders in sport clubs. She gained accreditation of the German Sport Psychology Association (asp). In parallel to her applied work, she has continued her academic career by being a PhD candidate and research associate at the German Sport University in Cologne. Her research focuses on the prevention of interpersonal violence in sport clubs. On a personal level, she is a big sport enthusiast even though working hours sometimes inhibit being active on her own (as some of you will probably understand…).
Fabrizio Sors, PhD
Research Department
Fabrizio is a postdoctoral researcher in general psychology at the Department of Life Sciences of the University of Trieste. He completed both his MSc in Psychology and his PhD in Neural and Cognitive Sciences at the University of Trieste, discussing theses on experimental sport psychology. His research activity is mainly focused on perceptual-cognitive processes related to multisensory stimuli, on the complex movements deriving from these processes, as well as on the effects of social influence on the same processes and movements. He published over 25 Scopus-indexed articles, which received more than 400 citations. He is currently member of the editorial board of 4 journals, and (co-)organized more than 10 international conferences. Finally, he has been an ENYSSP member since 2012, and since 2019 he has been part of the Managing Council, serving as coordinator of the Research Department.
Italy
Hungary
Zsofia Szekeres, PhD.
Research Department
Zsofia has a Master's degree in Psychology from Eotvos Lorand University in Hungary and an MSc in Sport and Exercise Psychology from the University of the West of England in the UK. She completed her PhD in Applied Sciences at London South Bank University. Her thesis focused on the barriers and benefits of exercise in older adults. Since 2018, she has completed several community-based research studies in exercise psychology and clinical trials at the NHS. Currently, she is a Research Associate at Cardiff Metropolitan University and one of the Networking Co-leads at the Centre for Health, Activity and Wellbeing Research at her university. She is currently working on an NIHR-funded randomised control trial that aims to promote active ageing.
Alex Iscru, BA candidate
Education Department
Alex is an Undergraduate Student in the Department of Psychology at the Ovidius University of Constanta, Romania. He is currently a member of the Sport and Exercise Psychology Group, RIDDLE LAB, BabeÈ™-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca. During his academic period, he has been an Erasmus+ Student for one semester at the University of Sassari, Italy. He also completed the Global Public Health and Sports Studies Summer School at University College Dublin, Ireland. He has been involved in Sports since he knew himself, combining football with academics.
Romania
Germany
Pia Zajonz, MSc.
Education Department
Pia is actually doing her PhD about positive emotions in performance sports at the Humboldt University of Berlin. And it is about positive emotions her life has been connected to sports since her childhood. Her biggest passion: distance running, and since recently kayaking.
She studied Psychology in France and Germany and could finally combine it with sport science doing her Master in “Psychology in Sport and Exercise” in Cologne. Here she also found her enthusiasm for research. However, certified as an applied sport psychologist (asp curriculum) she enjoys very much to work with athletes in the field as well. Her vision in research and practice: bringing back a bit more fun in the pressured world of elite sport. Her vision for ENYSSP: sharing her passion for sport psychology.
Grzegorz Więcław, MSc.
Past President
Grzegorz WiÄ™cÅ‚aw, MSc, SASP-FEPSAC. Grzegorz graduated from the EMSEP program at University of Jyväskylä. Since 2013 he has worked full-time as a self-employed applied sport psychologist, primarily in his home country, Poland. Currently, he serves clients including Polish national wheelchair rugby team, football and handball academies as well as a range of individual athletes representing different sports. In search of finding best avenues to turn theory into practice, he also lectures at various universities, publishes and translates sport psychology related material. He has been involved with ENYSSP since 2011 and served one term as an applied department representative (2015 – 2019).
Poland
Former ENYSSP MCs
2019-2023
Left to right: Zsanett Bondar, Mauro Murgia, Peter Schneider, Grzegorz Więcław (President), Svenja Wachsmuth, Bernadette Ramaker, Snezana Stoljarova
Bottom row: Fabrizio Sors, Ismael Pedraza, Dennis Redlich
+ Evangelos Manolopoulos